i’m off for fun and frolicking later this a.m., so i got up early, and got lots done!! listed the DIY lantern kit on etsy, 
and make a heap more clothespins / clothespegs. My favorites have always been the musical note ones: 
More craftiness much later!
Day 18 Thing: A dry-run set up of the table for my first craft fair. (It goes along with the student fashion show at the local UC.) It turned out quite nicely, but rather than show those pics, I am including a much more inspiring one of the buttons I just picked up at Thrift Town for my cuffs/headbands:
Day 19 Thing: A handwritten note to my dear friend. Another favorite thrift store of mine supports the local SPCA and has a great collection of old/vintage greeting cards. This one is a (not-vintage) hilarious, slightly fuzzy, photo of a groundhog (?) glued to a card.
Continuing with the kid’s craft theme, I also picked up some shrinky dinks at the craft store the other day. I started out just making random drawings, like a pig, lady bug, and a little worm. My roommate’s friend drew an awesome turtle, but unfortunately it didn’t survive the baking. We thought it would make a cute bookmark, but it curled all up on itself.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but I didn’t realize quite how much they shrink, or how thick they get. It’s amazing - it starts off like a thin flexible sheet, and you end up with a hard plastic. So cool! So, before and after shots:
I made one of them into a necklace:
And then, after looking at them for a little while, I realized that I could make some really cool buttons…. so I did.
This is a cooky owl. I started out by sketching out little owls and cut one out to use as a base pattern, but decided against it. I ended up looking at my favorite pic and then just free-form cutting out the owl pieces. Then, I hand embroidered the owl onto a bas fabric using different decorative stitches. I found the perfect beads to use as the feet in my bead stash and used bugle beads for his beak. The eyes are the same button but I decided to turn one right side up and one right side down. I think I am going to use this in a purse….maybe patchwork this into the flap…not sure yet. Just needed to do something crafty for the challenge *smiles*
I spent a few minutes playing around with my camera, experimenting with taking closeup/macros through a cheap plastic magnifying glass (one of the prizes from my library’s Summer Reading Program last year.)
Surprisingly, this seemed to really help with getting better focus at closer distances. I’ll have to play around with it some more tomorrow. And then on to taking shots through my binoculars!
A little contrast and color work, and you have my Thing for today: Number 7.
Day 7 already! I think I’m running out of ideas. :S
Today, I put my new vintage buttons to good use and made a couple of monochrome rings inspired by Ric Rac (http://vintagericrac.blogspot.com/2008/01/psssssst-need-quick-fix.html) (Please excuse the dreadful state of my fingernails!)
P.S. Is anyone else having as much trouble as me uploading stuff to Wordpress?
I am so excited to share these with you! While I was sick today I knew I still needed to get a few things done — especially because of the February Thing A Day *smiles*. My mom has been bugging me for well over a year to make some brooches & I kept procrastinating. Well, for some reason I finally listened today.
These little buggers are a lot of fun to make because I can focus on them one at a time and make them all totally different. They take a lot longer than I thought they would because they are completely handcrafted, but it is well worth it.
I am going to have to take better pictures before I list them for sale. I have already designed the card that they will be sold on so now all I need to do is either buy the right paper to print them myself or go to the printer to have them done. That or I will use vistaprint cause I can spend relatively little with them and get exactly what I want.
Anyways, I will be carrying a line of brooches from now on in my etsy shop. Here’s my first batch:
I love that I can use buttons and trims and beads AND I get to play with my fabric stash. I know there aren’t very many there, but I did work for 8 hours today (if that tells you how long they take on average). I hand stitch them and I also use liquid stitch (fabric glue) on them because I am paranoid about them staying put together. A lot of them are more dimensional than the photo shows. I will have to make sure that when I photograph them for sale that I figure out how to show how cool they are.
I’m really proud of them!! Oh, I almost forgot this one:
That one is my favorite because of the special beads I used on it. It is also made out of the prettiest hand dyed egyptian cotton. I am a sucker for peach *smiles*
I think I used up all my creativity yesterday, so all I did today was sort and clean the masses of vintage buttons I recently bought off eBay for future ‘Thing-A-Day’ projects, with one eye on the England game. There are some real gems in this lot (and yet more + beads to come - lovely stuff!).
Drying, after a quick dunk in a very gentle solution of warm water and ‘eco’ washing-up liquid.
All done!
Here is my thing for today! I’ve been wanting to put little jump rings on these charms I bought, becuase the ring that was on it already was to small for a necklace to fit through. The other thing I did was make a pair of earrings out of vintage pale pink buttons, and they are ADORABLE! I will sell them on etsy so a lucky someone can look extremely cute! ;-) 
- tracy
I’ve been lazy about posting, sometimes I don’t feel like scanning or taking pictures. Whatever. Here they are, I’ve been trying real hard to do something, at least a little bit, everyday. It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be. I think one of my goals would be to organize my room. It is an absolute mess. Anyway….here you go.
feel a bit of a cheat as i do a craft course on a monday so i get about 2 hours of crafting in.
anyways this is what i did today…….
I used some felt that I got at a cfaft show and some antique buttons to make this design today. Not sure what I will do with it yet. I am trying to use materials this month that I already have and not go out and buy new.
Nancy
I bought some super comfortable, super dull brown leather flats and for Day 1 decided to doll them up.
Very pleased because I was able to use all remaindered materials (felt, embroidery thread and buttons).
The shoes are still kind of townie-looking, but I like them a lot better.
